Took the plunge!

[spectra]

Hi ladies,

After lurking for 2 weeks on this board, I have finally took the plunge! I have ordered LOTS of samples and FS's of the eyeshadows, glows, finishing powders, kits...

Hope this experiment turns out well. Thanks for all your frank comments.

Adeline

[Rhys]

Hey Adeline -

Welcome to the forum, and congrats on taking the plunge - you'll have a blast with it!

[tizzylou]

Welcome Adeline, Glad you took the plunge, you should enjoy your "makeup swim", and you willl find lot's of good suggestions here.
Hollis

[JenW]

Welcome to the Forum! If you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

[spectra]

I have been mixing up a storm in my room! But even at 16 White to 2 Buttery Gold, I find that it is still a *bit* too dark, and also a bit too yellow. How should I decrease the yellow and lighten the shade?

Appreciate any comments / help you experts can give!

[mgmsrk]

Try adding more ivory and a bit of ebony to tone down the yellow.

[JenW]

Great suggestion on the adding a bit of Ebony to lessen the yellow. The White will also cut the yellow a bit. My next question is, are you sure you are a Buttery Gold? Perhaps you are more of a Warm (for when you get around to mixing a new batch). Can you give me a little more information on your skintone?

[spectra]

Thanks ladies for all the suggestions.

Jen, I really really suck at trying to describe my colour. The best approximation I have is that I am a NC20-25 in MAC, does that help?
However I think you are right in saying I am not a Buttery Gold, I would be more neutral *I think*?? With slightly warm, yellow undertones, I am, afterall, Asian.

Short of throwing away the batch I have, is there anyway I can salvage this? How do I figure out what is my base colour? Trial and error?

Thanks Ladies!

[karen]

Welcome!! We're glad you took the plunge!

Buttery gold should be a good match to the MAC NC series (I designed it that way), but every once in a while we find someone who gets a good match with ours only to find out that the foundation they had been using wasn't that great of a match. The other thing is that if it's too dark it may look a little too yellow right now but once you lighten it up it may be better.

Jen's suggestion about the warm gold may be a good one for you too...in the mean time if you want to salvage what you have try lightening it first, and if it's still too yellow then try a bit of ebony.

[JenW]

Spectra-
On my reading the blogs of various women who use mineral makeup (and that includes quite a few Asian beauties), I have noticed that there are varying degrees of yellow in their skintone. Some need foundations that are quite yellow. Also, some wear the same color foundation as I do in many of the lines available. In SN, I am somewhere between Warm Gold and Ebony, but lean more warm when I am tanned. A portion of those Asian ladies wear Warm Gold in Silk Naturals, and the other portion wears the Buttery.

The longer I am around mineral makeup, I am finding that many of us have ideas of what our undertones "should" be. With my hair and eyes, I am supposed to be a cool, but I tend much more neutral and slightly warm. It took me months to figure that out. I know there are definitely undertones that you can easily rule out, but don't be afraid to sample colors that are on the edge of what you think your target color should be. At least that way you can either find something better, or confirm what you already knew. It is a win, win.